Mother’s Death and Child Survival: The Case of Early Quebec

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to account for the effect of mother's death on child survival in a historical population. Using comprehensive data on the early French Canadian population of Quebec, evidence is provided for a higher risk of dying for motherless children that remains significant over all childhood and long after the death of the mother. The specific effect of the loss of maternal care was estimated by comparing mortality before and after mother's death, furnishing a means to control for family heterogeneity. No differential in investment between genders was detected before age 3, but older girls suffered a three-fold higher susceptibility to mother's death than their male counterparts. This suggests that grown-up girls assuming the responsibilities of the missing mother had a lower chance of survival.

Consequences of Maternal Death in the Family

“…La pobreza, la malnutrición, la disminución de la lactancia materna y la insuficiencia o falta de servicios de saneamiento y salud están asociados a la alta mortalidad de lactantes y niños pequeños debido a que una de las necesidades básicas del niño es la presencia de una figura materna que lo alimente, proteja e instruya; lo anterior concuerda con lo señalado por Willführ (15) y Pavard et al (16). Igualmente, se considera que la supervivencia del recién nacido y de los otros niños se reduce grandemente con la defunción de la madre (23).…”

Mortality after Parental Death in Childhood: a Nationwide Cohort Study from Three Nordic Countries.

“…Spousal bereavement [2,3] or child death in adult populations [4,5] is often followed by an increased mortality risk. Maternal death in infancy or parental death in early childhood may lead to an increased mortality risk; however, scientific evidence is limited to short-term observations, historical data, or often studies in low-and mid-income settings [6][7][8][9][10]. In high-income countries, 3%-4% of children experience the death of a parent before they reach 18 years of age [11].…”

“…Using combined nationwide data from three high-income countries (Denmark, Finland, and Sweden), we examined the association between parental death in children and adolescents and subsequent allcause mortality risk until early or mid-adulthood, as well as causespecific mortality. We further postulated that the magnitude of the associations differs according to sex of deceased parent, type and cause of parental death, child sex, and child age at parental death [3,6,[8][9][10]15,20]. The unique data from national registers provided further opportunities to take the effects of socioeconomic inequality [21,22] and other important factors into account [23][24][25].…”

Motherhood versus Fatherhood: The Effect of Parent Death on Post-Neonatal and Child Mortality from 1850 - 1920.

“…Most historical research on the survival prospect of children examinesthe effect of the loss of the mother or father on the mortality level of children (Derosas, 2002;Beekink, van Poppel&Liefbroer, 1999;2002;Campbell & Lee, 2002;Tsuya &Kurosu, 2002;Pavard, Gagnon, Desjardins, &Heyer, 2005) but focuses exclusively on one small community. Other studies examine child mortality by focusing on the single parenthood family condition (Gay & Tong 1967;Blakely, Atkinson, Kiro, Blaiklock, & D'Souza, 2003;Weitoft, Hjern& Rosen, 2003).…”

“…Only a few historical studiesdeal with the effect of a parent's death on the survival of children over time (Reher&Gonzales-Quinones 2003;Gagnon et al 2005;Poppel&Gaalen, 2008). While most scholars agree on the importance of the mother on child mortality, the effect of the father on the survival rate of children and the impact of parent death on child mortality during the nineteenth century is somewhat controversial.…”